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Learn More About Family History of Disease

Does your family history of disease include heart disease or other hereditary diseases? Find out how knowing your family history can be a clue to your own risk of disease.

Your family history of disease is your family medical tree. If you have a close relative with diabetes, your own diabetes risk may go up. Heart disease, cancer, and high blood pressure also tend to run in families, and some hereditary diseases can be passed down from parent to child through a defective gene.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, although most people realize that knowing their family history of disease is important, only about one-third of Americans have gathered and recorded their family’s health history.

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“Some examples of why family history is important and how doctors use it are colon and breast cancer,” says Elizabeth Lo, MD, a family care physician at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass. “Someone with a strong family history of breast or colon cancer may be screened earlier and more frequently for these diseases.”

A family history of disease may be used to:

Determine your risk for certain diseases
Start early treatment or prevention for diseases that run in your family
Determine whether you should get certain genetic tests for hereditary diseases
Let you know if you are at risk for passing a disease to your children
“Family disease history may indicate the need for genetic testing and counseling,” says Dr. Lo. “A woman with a family history of breast cancer may be tested for certain genes that help doctors predict breast cancer risk and the best treatment.”

Creating Your Family Medical Tree

The National Institutes of Health recommends getting a family history of disease going back at least three generations. You should include your grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, and cousins on both sides of your family. If you have children, include them, too.

“It is important to go back a few generations on both sides of the family because a young parent or even a young grandparent may not be old enough to have developed a potentially hereditary disease such as cancer or dementia yet,” explains Lo.

Your family historyof disease is influenced by a lot more than genes that may transmit hereditary diseases. Families also share other important factors such as lifestyles, diet, and environmental exposures that can cause a disease to run in your family. Common diseases to look for and chart include:

The easiest way to get your family history of disease is to talk about it with various relatives and write it down. Find out about their own health history and ask them about the health histories of family members who have passed away. Include diseases and medical conditions, age of diagnosis, and the cause and age at death.

Here are some other tips that may help:

Take advantage of family gatherings to gather information.
Use family documents such as old letters or saved obituaries.
Use public records such as death certificates.
If you are adopted, ask your adoptive parents if they received medical records from the adoption agency, and contact health and social service agencies that may be able to help you track down your biological parents.
It’s important to remember that having a family history of illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, or diabetes does not mean you will have that disease. It does, however, increase your heart disease, cancer, or diabetes risk. Knowing that ahead of time gives you a chance to screen, prevent, and treat these diseases earlier.

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“Some people have a detailed knowledge of their family medical history, and others have hardly thought about it. This information is important for everyone,” says Lo. “Using an Internet tool that helps you record and keep a record of your family history is a great idea.”

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